Longtime Gore Supporter Indicted

November 04, 1998

A Tennessee real estate developer who contributed to the Clinton-Gore re-election effort was indicted in Washington Wednesday on 44 counts related to allegedly illegal campaign donations. Franklin L. Haney of Chattanooga, Tenn., also was accused of conspiring to make illegal contributions to the campaign of former Tennessee Sen. James Sasser, who is now the Clinton administration's ambassador to China. Haney, a longtime Tennessee supporter of Vice President Al Gore, has long been under scrutiny by congressional committees in part because he paid Clinton-Gore campaign manager Peter Knight a $1 million fee just before Knight moved from his lucrative lobbying job to the campaign in 1996. Haney alleged the money was for advice Knight gave on Haney's effort to attract the Federal Communications Commission to a real estate project.